Academy Days
by PunkPinkPower
Summary: Not many know it, but RJ owes who he is to Dom.


There was a boy skipping stones in the reflecting pool.

This struck him as odd, being that he reflecting pool was for meditation. Perhaps this was a new student?

RJ was torn. He wanted to go up to the boy- who was really probably the same age as he was- and tell him to stop doing that, that it was breaking the rules and as the son of one of the head teachers who was on his first day of training it was his responsibility to uphold the rules!

But he didn't. He watched the blonde boy continue to skip stones gleefully, until the keeper of the grounds came ambling towards him. The old Mr. Cuddy scolded him profusely, and all the while the blonde trainee looked nonchalant and amused. He walked off with Mr. Cuddy, either receiving a lecture or a demerit, and the water on the reflecting pool stilled back to its usual calm serenity.

RJ hoped the boy wouldn't be expelled on the first day of the term, but he also hoped he wouldn't have much to do with him.

* * *

He had settled into his dorm with little trouble- he didn't own more possessions then would fit in one suitcase, partially due to moving so much with his father and also due to the fact that he didn't like clutter. He preferred the easy feeling of the clean space more than having his own things muck it up.

The door to his dorm opened, and he looked up tensely. His new roommate would be the only other person he had ever shared a room with besides his father.

And there was the blonde boy who had been skipping stones across the reflecting pool. RJ thought there surely must be a mistake, but sure enough the boy came up and dumped his large duffle bag onto the adjacent bed.

It didn't make any sense. He knew how the academies worked- roommates were carefully selected based on compatibility and animal spirits, and students were boarded with the ones who would help them most to grow, whom they could learn from.

Why would his father pair him with someone who had no regard for the academy rules?

The blonde had turned towards him. Offering a grin and his hand he said, "Hey. I'm Dom."

RJ accepted and replied with his own name, wondering what he could possibly learn from this man.

* * *

His roommate was a wolf spirit. That explained it.

When they were given their uniforms on the third day, after careful testing and consideration by the academy masters, Dom knew why he'd sensed such hostility from RJ.

His rhinoceros was a threat to the wolf and everything he stood for. His rules, his ranks, his pack mentality… Dom was nothing like a wolf.

But maybe, for the sake of friendship, he could be. He'd have to give it some thought.

* * *

The first time Dom offered his neck to RJ they were both naked. They'd returned from their showers at the same time, and their tent was small. Dom had dropped his towel and bared his neck. RJ froze, absolutely riveted to the spot.

"What are you doing?" RJ demanded.

Dom didn't meet his eyes when he spoke, and kept his neck carefully open. "Just letting you know everything's cool. Not gonna cause any trouble."

RJ was appalled, but at the same time incredibly intrigued. His wolf spirit was ecstatic, and RJ almost couldn't keep the happy grin off his face. Dom was… submitting?

"Well… thanks." RJ finally murmured. "You can stop."

Dom stood up and finished putting on his clothes as though nothing had happened, and he left RJ standing there, towel around his waist, gapping.

* * *

"You seem tense."

Dom approached him from the side instead of behind, and sat down next to him. RJ didn't open his eyes, but he did feel Dom looking at him.

"Everything okay?" Dom prodded.

"I am not tense." RJ said in a monotone calm. "I am meditating. I am focusing my mind on the positive aspects of the universe in an attempt to attain great enlightenment."

There was a long silence, and RJ thought Dom might be meditation beside him. But then, "So, not okay, then."

RJ tried not to grin as he opened an eye ever so slightly to see Dom mimicking his position exactly.

"I'll try to focus my mind on you, and maybe that will help," Dom offered.

They mediated for about 10 minutes before Dom tackled him, and they ended up wrestling instead. It was surprisingly more useful than meditation.

* * *

"I don't know why you try so hard." Dom said to him in front of the message board, proclaiming that week's top students.

"My father is my Master," RJ offered, annoyed. "I'm held to a higher standard than most."

Dom leaned over to RJ, close to his shoulder. He appeared to be inspecting RJ's shoulder.

"What are you doing?" RJ asked, eyeing him.

"It's funny," Dom said slowly. "I don't see it."

"See what?" RJ asked, pulling his sleep slightly around to get a look at whatever it was he might have missed.

Dom grinned, tilting his head at RJ. "The huge chip in your shoulder."

"I don't even want to be a Master."

RJ confessed it one morning while he was getting ready for class, and Dom was still lazing around in his bunk. The statement made him turn to scrutinize the wolf more closely.

"It just feels like that's what I'm supposed to do." It was a whisper, as though RJ wasn't looking for any kind of response from Dom. He just wanted Dom to know.

"You always do what you're supposed to do, don't you?" Dom wondered, his speech only slightly slurred by his sleepiness.

"I…" RJ paused, his back to Dom. He sat down on the edge of Dom's bed. "I don't know how to be any different."

Dom considered this, watching the absolutely forlorn look on RJ's exhausted face. He liked RJ a lot. In fact, he was probably the most decent person at the academies, but he wouldn't be if he stayed here forever, Dom knew. He'd change.

He needed to change, but not that way. He really needed to go in the opposite direction, if Dom had anything to say about it. From the way RJ was treating him these days, it just might.

"Don't worry," Dom said, reaching out to rub RJ's back a bit. "I can teach you."

* * *

RJ brought him dinner in detention. In front of a Master.

Dom had broken another one of the academies rules again, and one of the Masters's had given him meditation practice, or in layman's terms detention.

RJ had come in with a tray from the cafeteria, loaded with Dom's favorites. Master Bengal was speechless.

"I just thought he might be hungry," RJ answered when asked why he would interrupt a Master's lesson like this. "Ca-Can I give it to him?"

Master Bengal just nodded, flabbergasted.

RJ walked over, and set the tray down in front of Dom. Dom smiled at him, and RJ, surprisingly, grinned back.

And that was when Dom knew he'd gotten through to him.

* * *

The petting started their second year. After a summer away from each other, Dom off having grand adventures and RJ taking community college cooking classes at Dom's insistence, they barely spent any time apart when they returned.

They would sit back to back and talk, go for meals together, and at night, when they were sleepy, RJ would lay his head in Dom's lap, and Dom would gently scratch him behind the ear.

Sometimes his wolf objected, but for the most part, it was the wolf in him that liked the Rhino in Dom. Dom had thick skin, not likely to be injured by any claws.

That was probably why RJ had such fun pushing him around.

"You're quite tonight," Dom whispered into the dark, his head leaned back against his bunk, the two of them curled up on the floor like they had the last two nights.

"You're getting really good at this…" RJ paused, uncertain what to call it.

"Petting?" Dom offered calmly.

RJ grinned. "If you ever tell anyone," he warned, but he felt to puff of air Dom let out in jest.

"RJ, you're my best friend. Who else am I going to tell?" Dom laughed.

Then he reached down and kissed RJ's forehead, before resuming the petting.

* * *

They went skinny dipping in the meditation pool during the winter holidays. It was freezing, and would get them absolutely expelled, but Dom insisted it was the last step in releasing RJ from his life-long shell.

"Getting expelled isn't the end of the world!" Dom told him, louder than necessary. "I promise you RJ, our lives will go on after this. Trust me."

RJ did trust Dom. More than anyone in the world.

That was why, when they finished swimming and ran back to their tent butt naked and soaking wet, it seemed perfectly natural to crawl into bed together to stay warm.

* * *

"I'm leaving the academy."

Dom looked up from his magazine, totally bewildered. "What?"

RJ was grinning like he'd never grinned before. "Master Swoop says that I've accomplished everything I came here to do. He's impressed with the changes he's seen in me, and he wants to take me on my Masters test."

Dom stared at RJ. He grinned and said, "Shit."

RJ's grin vanished. "What's wrong?"

Dom shrugged, and he got up to give RJ a congratulatory hug before pulling away. "Well, if you're leaving, then so am I."

"Dom," RJ started, putting a hand on his shoulder. "You can't come with me on my Masters test."

Dom laughed. "I know that. But without you gone, there will be no reason for me to stay."

"Don't you want to finish what you started?" RJ asked.

Dom considered RJ for a moment, wondering if this happy, content man was the same one who'd stared at him like he was an alien for tossing rocks into the meditation pool their first day of classes. "RJ, you were what I started."

* * *

"A pizza parlor? Really?" Dom asked as they cuddled for what might be the last time in their shared room.

"Right here in Ocean Bluff. And I'll theme it after Pai Zhug, so if any Masters come to eat they can be thoroughly amused at my ridiculous life choices." RJ grinned, waving his hands around in the air while he talked.

Dom grinned with him, stroking his friends long brown hair and wondering when they'd see each other again.

"And I'll have a place to live built in, so you can come and stay and work whenever you need to," RJ teased.

Dom grinned. Master Mao had told him that day to go out into the world and find himself, so Dom had borrowed money from RJ for a place ticket to Australia. He left in the morning.

"That all sounds great," Dom agreed, grabbing RJ's hand as it started to fall back to the ground. "Of course, there is another plan."

"Oh?" RJ said, looking up at him.

"You could come with me." Dom offered. The look on RJ's face told him he already knew the answer.

"I have to stay Dom." RJ said, giving Dom's hand a squeeze. "I'm not sure why. But I have to. You could stay."

"That doesn't exactly coincide with 'go out and find yourself' now does it?" Dom teased.

RJ looked pensive. "You never know. You could find yourself in a Pizza Parlor."

They grinned at each other, sharing a moment of amused fondness, of friendship, of love.

"Don't worry," Dom said at last, giving RJ a good rustle behind the ear, "I'm sure one day I will."


End file.
